There is an ever increasing demand for electronic devices to operate with increased efficiency and greater operational speed. As an example, communication devices that are utilized in a wireless local area network (WLAN) can be configured to control transmission and reception of data in a manner that maximizes bandwidth. Such devices can include a communications controller, such as a media access control (MAC) processor, that is configured to control the data flow between a variety of other communication devices in the WLAN via communications applications. Each communications controller may require different configuration data, such as calibration data and/or predetermined information to be written to MAC-layer and/or physical (PHY)-layer registers, that is loaded upon startup and/or reset of the communications controller.
The configuration data of a given communications controller is typically stored in a serial electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) accessible by the communications controller. The serial EEPROM may be accessed by the communications controller via a bus interface protocol, such as inter-integrated circuit (I2C) protocol, such that the communications controller may store the configuration data in a local memory, such as a static random access memory (SRAM) or cache memory. The local memory may also be configured to store application parameters associated with the communications applications with any of a variety of other communication devices on the WLAN. However, the local memory in the communications controller may have limited storage capacity, thus limiting the number of communications applications that can be performed by the communications controller. In addition, repeatedly accessing the local memory for each communications application may require a substantial amount of processing utilization, and may block operation of other components of the communication device, such as a radio frequency (RF) interface. As a result, the performance of the communications controller may be substantially affected upon switching between communications applications, and the WLAN may experience undesirable delays in data transfer between one or more communication devices.